Monster party Book 8: Look down, look down
by James Firecat
Summary: Falkovnia is not a nation, it is a bandit camp with thousands upon thousands of hostages.
1. Chapter 1

Monster Party Book Eight: Look down, look down, you're standing in your grave.

AN: Yes, for once I'm doing these at the start of the chapter rather than the end. First of all recapping my last story was getting boring, so we're going to jump straight into this one.

That said this story is going to be based off of Death Unchained and take place in Falkovnia therefor I must advise trigger warnings for Fascism and or military dictatorships and the effects of said forms of rule have on the people who have to live under them. Yes, most of Ravenloft is dark fantasy, but this Falkovnia makes Westeros look like Middle Earth if you get what I'm saying…..

Stuff is gonna get dark people… so, without further ado, welcome to what is going to be the darkest story that I intend to write. I'm gonna mark this one "M" rather than "T" just because of how dark the themes are, but that's just a rough guess on my part, don't expect to see explicit sex scenes or anything….

Anyway without further ado lets take a trip to the breadbasket of the Core… it won't be anywhere near as nice as it sounds on paper...

Chapter one: A nation in despair, weakened by war...

There are a lot of ways to die. Some people don't even realize that they're experiencing one of them, either because they go peacefully in their sleep or the means of their demise has removed their ability to think clearly or death strikes so swiftly that no rational thought can be formed.

Most of those people are lucky.

Some people are all too aware of the fact that they're dying and very few of them feel lucky about the prospect.

Death often comes quickly and violently, but in a few rare cases death comes slowly and violently. No one experiencing such a fate feels lucky about the prospect.

Ilona Beglitzi most certainly does not. A simple woman, whose hair had just begun to turn gray with age, and will not have a chance to see it grow any grayer.

She is hanging roughly ten feet off the ground in the center of one of Lekar's many large public square. A pike has been driven through her stomach hefting her up into the air, and then she was left to allow gravity to slowly pull her down the weapon's length ripping her apart inch by inch.

She and her daughter Smaranda had the misfortune of drawing the attention of one of city's military elite, the Talons' of Vlad Drakov. The man wanted to have his way with Smaranda.

All resisting his lecherous desires earned Smaranda was that both of them would be impaled after the Talon was finished taking whatever pleasure he desired from the young girl's body.

Likely every single person (and there are over three dozen of them) imapled next to Ilona might have a similar story to tell, if they weren't already dead.

Life in the lands of the Mists has few happy endings, but it seems that a great many of the shortest, saddest, and most brutal stories unfold in the kingdom of Falkovnia. It is less of a true kingdom though, then simply one large military camp. It is a land of backbreaking labor, combined with the endless abuse any time one is unfortunante enough to draw the attention of those with power. Natrually, the only way to gain any for oneself is to join the military which so oppresses the nation, in the process also opening oneself up to the prospect of death in a foreign land as part of the Kingfuhrer's latest invasion.

If Vlad Drakov was not so vehement in his hatred of those who practiced magic (and indeed even in the face of his well known prejudice against mages of every stripe from wizards to sorcerers to clerics or druids) it would be easy to suspect him of secretly conducting some sort of massive horrific blood powered ritual. How else could one find any sort of a reason for the oceans of blood that Vlad has ordered to be spilled, especially given that more of it ended up belonging to his own subjects than to his enemies.

Falkovnia is a land where each day of life is another hard fought and precious victory… though many outsiders might consider it pyrrhic in the extreme as all that has been one is another day of life in Falkovnia.

Ilona Beglitzi has no victories in her future, she has no future at all.

Someone else, someone who had not lived their entire lives expecting such a horrific and violent end would be screaming themselves horse in the face of the torment that she is undergoing.

Even though she is alone (save for the other impaled bodies) in the square Ilona will not give the soldiers who did this to her, wherever they now are (she could have been impaled hours ago, she could have been impaled minutes ago, when your entire body is wracked with pain accurately messuring the passage of time is the least of your concerns) she would not give them the satisfaction of her screams.

So she hung there suffering in silence, awaiting her final inevitable fate.

It took something truly unexpected to make her speak up…. Something like a cloud of white mist arising from seemingly nowhere, and people stumbling out of that cloud who hadn't been there a few moments ago.

She can't see the people very clearly, some of that was her age, some the pain that made hard to think clearly, and some simply the fact that it was well past sunset and only a few weak lamps lit the street.

Ilona had no idea who these people were. She does not care who these people were, she was beyond saving, she was beyond any further torment, for how could she be made to suffer more than she already has?

"My daughter..." She whispered, her words faint and swiftly followed by her coughing out a small puddle of blood as even more of it drained from the from her stomach.

The people, assuming they were people at all, were indistinct fuzzy blobs to Ilona. One of the larger ones turned in her direction, she could make out colors a little more clearly than she could shapes, this blob was mostly black and silver.

"Is she still alive?" Ilona pleaded pathetically.

"Which one is she?" The blob shifted slightly, maybe it was doing something with its hands.

Such vauge gestures were how Ilona might have tried to convey the impossibilty of picking one random person out among the forest of dead and dying that surrounded them.

"Blue ribbon…. In her hair." Ilona choked out before coughing up still more blood.

The black and silver blob moved around and began to inspect the other impaled bodies. After a while it returned to Ilona's side.

"Already dead. They did a 'poor' job impaling her, it went through her heart, she would have died quickly." The blob answered her.

Ilona smiled despite her suffering. At first.

Then her face turned cold and cruel as she gazed out at an ever dimming world.

"A curse upon the Talons! May they drown in the blood they so freely shed!" Ilona declared, knowing she would never live to see if such a prophecy came true, if such a thing even could come true.

She was a simple peasant, not some enigmatic Vistana whose dying curse might be assured to inevitably strike those she invoked it upon.

She began to awkwardly shake one of her hands, even though it required a great deal of effort and sent fresh jolts of pain through her.

"My wedding ring. Don't need it anymore. My husband Matthias, the Laborer's quarter, the one with the M&I engraved on the door, tell him is wife and daughter were innocent of any crime. May he protect you, even if he couldn't protect us." Ilona Beglitzi gasped.

Then, having done what pitifully little she could to help these new arrivals, she closed her eyes, never to open them again.

XXX XXX XXX

Alexander Diamondclaw was a tall man with silver hair. He is left eye was a bright green, his right was covered by a black eye-patch. He was wearing a black overcoat cut in a vaguely martial manner and engraved with silver runes.

Seeing that the poor impaled woman who had been talking to a moment ago had died, he reached up a black gloved hand and gently removed the simple copper band that she wore as a wedding ring. He would not deny this woman a chance to have her and her family find some small measure of vengeance against those who had ended her life so cruelly, even if it was only by hiding others from the Talon's gaze.

"I live to hunt rats, it is my job… but at the end of the day what are hawks but rats with wings? Well wings, and big pointy beaks that they stab things with..." Muttered a young man dressed all in red with soulful brown eyes.

"You aren't the only one James." Answered a mostly (it had a single white stripe running down the middle) black haired woman.

Well some of Alexander Diamondclaw's small adventuring group were handling the realization that they'd suddenly been transported to some city within Falkovnia's borders with relative calmness (and why not, it wasn't the first time they'd been transported by an ineffable cloud of mist) others were a bit more put off.

To put it mildly.

"My ears. My fucking ears! My fucking ears Cal! Where in the name of all those stupid powerless gods are my fucking ears?" Demanded Devi Skye as she pounded her hands against the chest of Callan "Cal" Wright.

Devi Skye blue hair that didn't quite cover her ears. Her ears that came to pointed tips making it clear that she was an elf.

Cal Wright on the other hand was a mostly unremarkable looking human with dirty blond hair and blue eyes. If anything about his physical appearance stood out it was the icy coldness of his blue eyes made all the more dramatic by the spectacles he wore. The other unusual thing about his was not his body, but his choice of weapon.

Strapped to Cal's back was a firearm, not that anyone in Falkovnia would be likely to tell one gun from another, but a person from a land more familiar with such weapons would be likely to note that Cal Wright's weapon had a certain serpentine slenderness about it.

As Devi's blue hands continued to pound away at his chest with a frantic energy, Cal gestured awkwardly towards the simple brown bag that Devi was wearing on her hip.

"They're in you bag Devi, that sort of thing is always in your bag, why did you expect me to have them?`" He protested.

Devi's breathing hesitantly began to slow down from its breakneck pace and she turned her attention to the bag in question.

Her blue gloved hands dove into with all possible haste and shuffled around in it, to Devi Skye it seemed to take forever, but to everyone else it couldn't have been more ten seconds. From the bag she eventually pulled a pair of carefully crafted ears and slid them nearly on top of her own. The prosthetic would not pass truly close and meticulous inspection, but they would be enough to keep anyone from recognizing that she was an elf at first glance. That done she began to dig her hands into the roughly cobbled stoned street with a desperate hungry.

"Dirt and mud, there is safety in dirt and mud. We're all too bright right now, too f**king bright. We need to look like everybody else. Look like everybody else, they can't kill everyone in the country, they need to leave SOMEONE alive to make the bread they eat! Look like everyone else, act like everyone else, don't let them notice you, don't let them even consider the possibility that you exist!" She insisted with a desperate gleam in her eye as she began to liberally slap mud and dirt onto her blue outfit.

"Devi, what can we do to help?" Asked Florence Bastien. The blond haired (though it looked rather more like straw than normal human hair) woman was dressed in a green leotard like outfit and had soft blue eyes. She hadn't bothered with any sort of pointless questions like "are you all right" not when the fact that Devi was anything but all right was painfully obvious.

"You all need to get your outfits dirty, now!" Insisted Devi as she continued to deliberately deface her clothing.

Cal Wright took only a moment to consider this another moment to consider arguing, then began to follow Devi's advice.

In short order the rest of the group began to do the same.

Before they could finish however the less than quiet process of ripping up the street drew the attention of unwelcome outsiders.

Four men stepped into the public square, each wearing a quilted doublet of blood-red velvet, dark breaches, a black iron bracer on each wrist, and a swirling black cape trimmed with red. One of the men had eyes that glowed in the dark like a cat's and he was the one who spoke first.

"Halt this disturbance at once! You have broken Kingfuhrer's curfew! Bare your ankles and prepare to receive punishment!" He insisted as he began to draw a longsword from the scabbard he wore at his hip.

As he did so moonlight glinted off of his bared blade, and also off of the large sword resting in a scabbard across Alexander's back.

"They carry weapons freely, kill them!" Insisted another of the men as he drew his own sword.

The six adventurers ceased their efforts to dirty themselves with the earth of Falkovnia and stood up.

"Falkovnian Talons." Reflected Cal Wright.

"I hate Falkovnian Talons..." Muttered James Firecat.

The long two handed blade slid free of its sheath and into Alexander's hands. Florence Bastien raised what seemed to be a simple staff without a trace of hesitation. Cal Wright shifted his firearm around and brought it to bear on the soldiers. Devi Skye twisted her wrists and what might have first in the dark seemed to be an especially large and ornate bracelet untwisted itself into a waiting flail. James Firecat's crimson jacket parted revealing that its insides had been sewn with a multitude of pockets and sheaths, inside which a multitude of knives resided. Mirri Catwarrior simply raised her bare hands in preparation for the coming battle, and smiled… or at least she spread her lips and showed her teeth.

XXX XXX XXX

The next morning, there were four more dead people in Lekar than there should have been… not that anyone was likely to do an exact count. Still, people were likely to notice that these bodies had been stripped completely naked.

That was strange enough, but the fact that they were laying beneath the many impaled bodies rather than jammed onto poles themselves was even stranger.

The strangest thing about the four dead bodies would only have been noticed if someone skill in the healing arts bothered to check the bodies, (which they wouldn't) that person might have realized that these four bodies lacked any clear obvious wounds from which they might have perished. They each bore minor fres injuries suggesting that they had taken part in a fight recently but nothing that should have had any chance of killing them.

If that person had been incredibly skilled (or been willing to cut the already dead bodies open) they might have realized that the cause of death had not even had anything to do with blood loss, quite the opposite in fact.

All four men had died from an excess build up of liquid in their lungs…. They had been knocked unconscious and drowned in the pools of blood that built up beneath the forest of impaled bodies.

End Chapter one.

AN: Like I said at the start, welcome to Falkovnia excrement will proceed in a downwards direction.


	2. Chapter 2

Monster Party Book Eight: Look down, look down, you're standing in your grave.

AN: I an uploading this chapter early just to get something uploaded since it has been too long since I've posted anything. Expect it to be more thoroughly proofread over the course of this week.

Chapter Two: I hit the ground and I'm still running but I need a place to stay tonight, I swear I'll be gone in the morning I just need somewhere warm to close my eyes.

OR

Chapter Two: I do my best to satisfy you all… (And with you we're quite content!)

"Yuck." Muttered James Firecat as he inspected the remains of a corpse in alley that the group had fled to after disposing of the Talons who had tried to waylay the group.

"Is there no part to this city that is clean?" Muttered Mirri Catwarrior in irritation.

"No." Devi Skye answered at once.

"No, there is no part of this city that is clean. There is no part of this entire realm that is clean. Vlad Drakov spilled an ocean of blood to claim the throne and left us all to drown in it. There is no clean, there is no hope, there is no life in Falkovnia.

That is why they have gone to war with Darkon so many times, because no one can truly hate the dead who continue to live, like the living who have ceased to before they've even died." Devi insisted with dreadful ernesty.

"Do you know how we can get to the Laborers' quarters from here?" Alexander Diamondclaw pressed, trying to keep the conversation focused on concrete objectives.

"No." Devi practically whimpered, as she fell to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

"But Devi, you never forget anything. How come you can't remember…." James began.

He never got a chance to finish however, because Cal Wright promptly elbowed him in the stomach, then hooked his right a leg around James' left and yanked.

The red haired young man thus found himself laying on his back in the dirty alley.

"What did you ask her?" What were you about to ask her?" Cal Wright demanded to know.

"Well, Devi never forgets anything so wanted to know why..." James began again.

Cal didn't let him finish this time either, and went so far as to slam the back end of his firearm into James' forehead.

"What are you doing to my kitten?" Mirri wanted to know, her tone was more curious than confrontation at the moment, but there was no way of being sure it would stay that way for long.

"According to the papers of noted alienist Doctor Gregory Illhousen of Nova Vaasa, there are two main reasons a person might suffer dramatic memory loss. The first is when the person literally can not recall the memories due to damage to their brain. Incidents related to that particular cause often revolve around physical trauma, though as ever Whiskers requires a lot of work to properly traumatize.

The second type is when the victim simply can not bear the emotional trauma involved with the memory and so erases it before it can do further damage, like a doctor cutting off a diseased limb before the sickness can spread. Which kind of memory loss do you think Devi suffers from at the moment?" Cal inquired.

"The second?" James suggested, this time being allowed to voice his response in full.

"Now that we've had your little lecture in the frailties of a living mind, can we get back to this particular disgusting thing that I've found?" Mirri sighed, seemingly more concerned about getting her white boots dirty than anyone else's physical or mental suffering.

"It looks a little more human than most of the dirty things around here." She clarified just to make sure she (or at least what she had found) remained the center of attention.

Although Devi Skye showed no direct signs of truly convalescing, she also showed no signs of her condition worsening, so the others allowed themselves a moment to inspect Mirri's discovery.

The body was that of a human male whose throat had been slit from eat to ear. His blood crusted corpse was already infested with maggots, suggesting he'd been dead for at least half a day or so. Whatever the reason for his death, it most likely had not been robbery since a few golden coins lay half buried in the dirt and grime of the street where he had fallen, while a bloodstained piece of paper poked from a pocket of his shirt.

"Heh, free money, even in Falkovnia the simple things in life can still bring a smile to a man's face..." Cal chortled to himself reaching for the fallen currency.

Before he could grab them, all of a sudden Devi pulled her face from her hands and lashed out with her flail.

It wrapped tightly around Cal's hands at the wrist and she yanked them away from the fallen body. "Do the maggots have any growths from their heads?" She demanded suddenly all quite sternness again.

The dirty blond haired man took another long look at the creatures infesting the body and then extended the middle and index finger of his right hand.

"Two." He confirmed.

"They're not maggots, they're rot grubs. Same diet, but if there aren't any dead bodies around for them to feast on, they'll happily make one. Those two antenna will release a chemical that numbs the victim, then they'll burrow into whatever piece of bare skin they can come close to.

After that they'll head straight for the heart, result is guaranteed death within an hour." The elf warned them before finally uncoiling her flail.

"Well it is a good thing I've got gloves on and long sleeves. That said, I death by insect crawling through my body and ripping apart my heart is really, really, really not how I want to die. Any suggestions for how we can kill these things before they have a chance to do the same to us?"

"Take a piece of wood, set its end alight, jam it into them. They're very vulnerable to sudden changes in temperature. Burning the marks they leave behind after burrowing into you can sometimes be enough to save your life, burning them before they can even get in is how you stay safe." Devi explained, before reaching into the small bag she wore on her hip and pulling from it an improbably long stick, (improbably long compared to the size of the bag at least) flint, and steel, and a bottle of oil.

Soon enough Cal had managed to set the end of the stick alight, and begun to scorch each and every single rot grub he could find.

Only after an extremely thorough extermination of the perfidious creatures did he finally help himself to the dead man's fallen gold.

Shortly after he'd done that, James Firecat helped himself to the note that was sticking out of the man's pocket.

"You will know the woman by the mark I have placed. Open her forehead. May your dagger strike true! L. S.?" He read it aloud for the others.

"Not the most useful of messages we've ever found on a dead body." Alexander Diamondclaw reflected.

"It is still an improvement over no note at all." Countered Florence Bastien.

"Do you think that we should spend the night here, or do you think that we should try to find Ilona's husband?" She pressed Alexander.

"You know what, Devi stop rubbing mud into your clothing, I've just thought of a way to solve at least two problems at the same time..." The silver haired man insisted.

XXX XXX XXX

Matthias Beglitzi was a simple man with simple worries. At the moment his greatest concern was the fate of his young son Petrus. Every so often the seven year old boy would stir in his sleep slightly, cough and then once again lie still.

It was impossible to be sure of what he was sick with, there were countless diseases that one could end up suffering from in Lekar if you lacked the wealth and a simple carpenter like him lacked the wealth for nearly everything imaginable.

Nearly everything, but not quite… Petrus and Voica (his three year old daughte) had both never gone a day without being given some manner of meal. While that might sound to some like no great achievement Matthias took pride in the knowledge that there were others who were less lucky. His dedication to hard work and making as much of a living for himself as possible (short of risking his life by joining the army) was part of the reason why his wife had given him half a dozen children, and today he still had a wife, two daughters and a son. At least that was what he had possessed this morning.

The fate of his wife Ilona and his daughter Smaranda played upon his mind, but not as heavily as that of his son. Those two should have been back by now, but with the pitiless pragmatism born of a life lived entirely in Falkovnia Matthias knew that there was nothing he could possibly do now to help either of the two missing female members of his family.

Night had fallen upon Lekar, only soldiers stalked the streets this late at night and if any of them found him outside of his dwelling he would be maimed as punishment… at best. At worst he would end up leaving his son and other daughter as orphans. So since there was nothing to be gained and a great deal he might loose, he stayed at home. He stayed at home with the largest and stoutest wooden bar he could find propped against his door to try and keep out all the evils of the world that dwelt outside.

Then all of a sudden there as a knock at that locked door.

For just a brief moment Matthias' heart leaped in his chest as he dared to dream of the impossibility of his wife and daughter returning. No sooner was his hopes raised then they crashed like a tide upon the shore, simply at the sound of the knock itself once considered. It was far to harsh and forceful to have been produced by his wife or daughter no matter what manner of distress they were in.

"Open up for the servants of the Kingfuhrer!" Insisted a powerful male voice.

Matthias moved with alacrity, no one survived to his age (and he could proudly boast of just over thirty years) by lollygagging in the face of a military order.

The bar was lifted, and the door opened.

Half a dozen people stormed into Matthias shabby dwelling almost at once. Their leader was a tall silver haired man.

Looking up at the man (whose right eye was covered by an eye patch while his left was a bright green) Matthias could not help but be a little taken aback.

Green eyes were not unheard of in Falkovnia (at least not to the degree that silver hair was) but it was a rare occurrence.

"Do you know who I am?" The man asked as he drew himself up to his full height… promptly revealing that he stood almost a full foot taller than Matthias.

"No." The carpenter answered at once.

As he gazed up at the silver haired man and the black hawk upon his forehead, Matthias could not help but think that there was something… wrong about it. The longer he looked at it, the more he had to resist and urge to reach up and rub the own black brand that had bee burnt into his forehead shortly after his birth.

"My name is Captain Alexander Diamondclaw. I am a Talon in the service of Vlad Drakov. Do you know what has brought me here?" Alexander introduced himself.

Indeed despite his odd appearance, the silver haired man was wearing a blood red doublet, upon his back was a black cape trimmed with red and there was a hawk marked bracer on his wrist. In short, if a man dressed as a Talon wished to proclaim himself one, it would take a much braver (and much more foolish) merchant than Matthias to argue with him on the matter.

"I wish that I could be of greater service to you Captain Diamondclaw." Matthias answered, which was about as close to a "safe" answer as one could possibly get when dealing with Talons.

"Do you recognize this?" Alexander inquired as he pressed a small copper band into Matthias' hand.

It was simple in design, and with it Matthias knew his fears were finally realized.

"It belonged to my wife Ilona Beglitzi." He spoke slowly, struggling to control his grief.

"That is correct. We located it, her, and alas your daughter as well at a storeroom of ill-gotten gains that my retinue recently raided. It seemed that treasonous officers of the ordinary military somehow possessed the utter lack of loyalty that would make it possible for them dare to steal from the Kingfuhrer's subjects!" Alexander explained.

Matthias meanwhile was unable to keep himself from mentally filling in certain unspoken gaps in the explanation. In particular, how said officers had been treasonous not because of stealing from Falkovnia's civilian populations, but because they had been hording the stolen goods for themselves rather than turning them over to Kingfuhrer Drakov.

"Despicable scum! Death is the only punishment fit for the enemies of Kingfuhrer Drakov!" Matthias insisted as loudly and forcefully as he dared without (hopefully) waking either of his sleeping children.

"Death to the enemies of Kingfuhrer Drakov." Alexander agreed.

"Alas, it seems that our beloved Kingfuhrer has more enemies than one might expect. Not just foreign foes, but even hear in Lekar, there are vermenous scum who have the audacity to plot and scheme against him! They show the ultimate lack of respect and the ultimate foolishness to do so under the Kingfuhrer's very nose, and for that reason they will inevitably face the ultimate punishment." Alexander insisted.

He then went silent for a moment and began to carefully inspect Matthias' home.

"For that reason, I and my followers have been assigned to the task of rooting out all treasonous behavior within the military and see it dealt with in the most swift and final manner. If the Kingfuhrer can not trust his own troops while they patrol his cities how could he possibly hope to trust them in battle?

For that reason, and given that your wife's ring was one of the many items whose discovery first prompted our assignment, we will be using your house as a temporary barracks." The silver haired Talon concluded.

Matthias nodded slowly. All things considered for a man whose home had been barged into by Talons in the middle of the night this was a 'well enough' outcome.

"Give me but a few minutes to gather up what I can carry, wake my children, and then we shall leave you the home for as long as you desire it." Matthias offered, knowing that he was unlikely to ever be able to return to this place, yet knowing that saying anything else was to risk offending the Talon.

Alas, it seemed that Alexander was offended all the same, or if not offended then… surprised? For the first time the strictly formal manner in which he had been holding himself seemed to crack, his voice became mildly softer and he placed a hand on Matthias' shoulder in what he probably imagined to be a reassuring manner.

"That, that will never do Matthias Beglitzi! If I cast you and what remains of your family out onto the streets then people will notice. What people notice they ask about. What people ask about, they learn about.

Am I to believe that a simple merchant like you would be able to craft a deception grand enough to be able to fool the Kingfuhrer's enemies as to why you have suddenly abandoned your home? No, to help preserve the utmost secrecy of my mission, none can be allowed to know of us taking residence here." Alexander insisted.

Mathtias felt uncomfortably sure that he knew where this particular line of reasoning was heading.

"I have dwelt in this home for several years. If I or my family were to suddenly go missing questions would be asked." He pleaded forlornly or his and his remaining children's lives.

Alexander responded with (in Matthias' opinion) a thoroughly uncalled for slap on the Carpenter's back.

"Oh but of course. There must be no evidence of our arrival and that means not only must there be nothing new, but nothing old must be absent. After all, for us to truly be worthy of the name 'Talon' we must be like the hawk, unseen and unnoticed until we dive upon our prey. For your gallant services to the KingFuhrer in hosting his servant take this stipend." Alexander insisted as he pushed still more metal objects into Matthias' hands.

These objects unlike the wedding band were not made of copper.

They were made of gold.

They were made of gold, but they were not falconheads. Matthias was not exactly sure what they were, but whatever the meaning of the symbols engraved on the coins, it was not the hawkbrand of Vlad Drakov.

"This is foreign coin!" He gasped in surprise.

To make an issue of such a matter was to ignore the other even grander impossibility of a Talon firstly paying for the right to use some merchant's home, and secondly paying the merchant a small fortune.

Alexander pulled Matthias close, a dangerous crafty gleam in his eye.

"As I said, there should be no proof of our arrival. If you were to be paid what you are owed in local currency it should be obvious where it came form. These coins however… seized from the Kingfuhrer's forigne foes, they can find their way into your hands through a much more uncertain providence." Alexander noted proudly.

Matthias could not believe that he was about to speak his next four words, yet he could not still his tongue.

"Do you have silver?" He protested.

Once again Alexander as struck silent and still by confusion.

"Good Captain, I am but a humble carpenter. If I were to take even a single golden coin to the money lenders, they would be full of questions about where I got them from, and if you were to accompany me to answer them, that would rather defeat the purpose of you and your men remaining hidden. If you were to give me silver instead, well one or two silver coins at a time I could explain away. Though perhaps it would be best to mix in a few falconclaws for me to sotckpile just in case they begin to get nervous?" Matthias suggested.

Alexander tilted his hand to the side slightly in obvious consideration, then decided.

"Sargent Devi Skye, see that this humble merchant is properly compensated as he desires, and one falconclaw to every four forigne coins." He insisted.

It was only now that Matthias was able to stop fearing for his life and pull his attention away from Alexander that he noticed that not all of his retinue was male.

"Devi" was a stern faced woman with brown hair and brown eyes. She was dressed in the same blood red outfit as Alexander but wore no cape and had no braclets. Matthias could not remember having ever seen a female Talon before (if that was what she was), but then no one lived long in Falkovia by paying too much attention on Talons without good reason.

If one of the bracelleted soldiers was to notice such an occurrence and decide that they were being spied upon, well the unfortunante would end up wishing for his own demise before the day was through.

"Sargent Devi is from the army's quartermaster corps, though she has already assisted me on many missions and thus can be trusted." Alexander quickly clarified.

Matthias relaxed slightly, such clerical work would indeed be far better suited to women than actual battle, though there was something haunting about the woman's eyes, as if she had seen far more blood spilled than ink.

After fiddling around with a small brown pouch she wore at her side she eventually extracted a great many silver coins, some the familiar falconclaw and others that he could not even guess the name of.

As Matthias became gradually more willing to contemplate that he might survive this night he allowed himself to more closely examine Alexander's retinue.

There was another Talon with blond hair and icey blue eyes, along with another female soldier of some kind.

A female soldier who was holding a chain.

A chain that lead to a collar wrapped around the neck of a young man.

Matthias quickly altered his conclusions slightly, "young" was not the word that really mattered when it came to definning this man, no not when one could call him "insane" instead. Nor was "man" the most suitable term, "monster" leapt far more easily to the tongue after a prolonged look.

The insane monster had foregone footwear, which was not in and of itself unheard of or even all that unsual among the poor of Lekar. What did stand out was that his feet had been left completely bare rather than wrapped in cloth rags or some other inadequate form of covering. Why that was so was obvious enough… honestly there were no "feet" worthy of the name to cover only a pair of paws covered in red furr.

Likewise when one closely examined the monster's hands it became obvious that they were covered in sparse crimson fur, and ended in claws that looked like they could open up a man's chest as easily as any dagger.

From his head sprouted a pair of bizzzare ears that were in the entirely wrong place and twitched about with an inhuman degree of flexibility.

None of those were the monster's most terrifying feature though. No, what bothered Matthias most about the beast was its eyes.

There was something horrifyingly exuberant in the monster's brown eyes. They showed neither the downcast look of a slave from whose mind all thoughts of rebellion had been thoroughly beaten or the simmering anger of one who still plotted against their master. Instead, there was something almost… triumphant in those eyes, as though their owner reveled in its condition.

"What is… that?" Matthias eventually managed to ask after struggling to find the right word, and eventually giving up and simply settling for whatever vocabulary was easily at hand.

"'That' as you put it used to be a private first class in the Kingfuhrer's army. Actually something of a minor hero, though of course all men who are faithfully serve the Kingfuhrer are worthy of that title. While serving on the border with Richemulot his post was overrun by wererats.

They tore chunks the size of your fist out of his arms and legs smeared their filth in his wounds and left him to die in a ditch. He was lucky enough to be discovered by another passing patrol, though even that would not have mattered if he hadn't clung to his life with a firece determination that would do even a Talon proud.

As it turned out, Falkfuhrer Vjorn Horstman of the Ministry of Science had some use for what was left of him in one of his… pet projects. Alas, there was about as much left of his mind as his body by that point… but when a speartip breaks you can still smash someone's head in with the pole that remains." Alexander declared with an ominous amount of jovality.

"What… what is it called?" Matthias was unable to keep himself from wondering.

"Kitten." The other woman who accompanied Alexander and held the chain leading to "Kitten's" collar. She had jet black hair parted by a streak of white down the middle, stunning and entrancing red eyes, and held herself with what someone from a land other than Falkovnia would consider aristocratic (since Vlad Darkov's kingdom had none to speak of) poise.

"Miriam Kantrar, formerly in the service of Falkfuhrer Vigo Drakov's ministry of the Central Prison. I specalized in intterrogations." She introduced herself, before reaching a white gloved hand out to almost tenderly caress her charge's ears.

The monsterous mishmash of man and and beast promptly began to produce a not quite growling sound from its throat that was all the more horrifying for its affectionate tones.

"Since you are making yourself aquaitence with my retinue, I should be kind enough to introduce my other attendant. Give me her chain."

The blond haired man handed over a chain that he'd been holding and Alexander promptly gave it a firm yank.

A woman who had been carefully positioning herself behind the others so as to stay out of sight was suddenly pulled forward.

She was dressed in a battered and mud soaked green outfit, and much like with Kitten there was a large metal collar fixed about her neck.

Unlike Kitten, this woman's green eyes showed more or less exactly what Matthias would have expected of a slave, barely controlled rage towards those who held her chains.

What was unexpected even for a slave was the fact that her skin was had a strange almost grass like green texture about it.

"This Witch was a follower of some foreign goddess by the name of Hala who came to Falkovnia seeking to help those in need. I and my fellow Talon's simply explained to her that as the greatest servants of the Kingfuhrer, our need was greater than anyone else's. She eventually yielded to the wisdom of our arguments and agreed to use her mystical powers in his service." Alexander explained.

"I see..." Mathias muttered unsure how else he could possibly respond to such a revelation.

Before the conversation could go any further Petrus coughed in his sleep again.

Like a hawk's affixing its gaze on a wounded rabbit Alexander's single visible eye all but instantly turned towards the carptenter's son.

"What was that?" He demanded.

"My son is sick for the moment, but he is already starting to recover. You not need to concern yourself..." Matthias began to explain.

Alexander refused to let him finish however.

He snapped the Witch's chains and nodded his head in the young boy's direction.

"This dwelling is now a Talon barracks. Disease and illness of any kind is an enemy of those who serve the Kingfuhrer, and any enemy that dares to set foot inside my barracks will be slain. Witch, heal the lad." Alexander insisted.

It was… impressive how the silver haired man could make such an command sound like he was order a particuarly gruesome form of execution.

He moved somewhat in Petrus' direction so that the Witch would be able to reach him and work her magic while still bound by her chains.

Matthias put no great stock in magic, but if this Witch's mystical skills were important enough for a Talon to be keeping close watch on her Matthias doubted she'd end up causing more harm than good.

While the Witch worked Alexander began to inspect his new "barracks" in more detail.

"This will never do. Sargent Skye, cots, blankets and pillows will all be necessary." Alexander ordered, snapping the fingers of his right hand to drive the point home.

The brown haired woman nodded and promptly began to fiddle about with her bag.

The container must surely have been enchanted as from a bag no larger than Matthias' head she somehow managed to produce half a dozen folded cots, heavy blankets, and a full dozen pillows.

To Matthias considerable surprise no sooner had Devi finished unfolding the first cot, then she lifted little Voica onto it, slipped a pillow underneath her head and drapped the thickest blanket Matthias had ever seen across her.

"Would you look at that, there's a section of the wall that has a nail sticking out of it, perfect." Rejoiced Miss Kantar.

She looped her "Kitten's" chains about said nail and then sat down next to them leaning aginst the wall.

"Pillow." She commanded without hesitation.

A moment later Sargent Skye tossed her the rankless woman a pillow and she propped it against the wall. That done, her Kitten proceeded to practically collapse against her in a manner not unlike a child seeking comfort in its mother's lap.

"Do not take this as some show of soft hearted chairty, I will be requistioning your other room as my own private resting place for the night." Alexander explained as he passed a folded cot to Matthias.

Mathias felt the thing's firm construction, and could not help but suspect that it would make a more comfortable resting place than his normal straw pallet. That went double given that sleeping on a cot designed for one person instead of a pallet that he and Ilona had shared for many years might help him find slightly more rest. Better to have no excess room aviable than to have it and been unable to stop contemplating why.

There was another metallic jangle as Alexander yanked on the Witch's chains again.

"Get us some pillows." He insisted to the green skinned woman.

Matthias was horrified to discover that he could not control his neck, it insisted on swivelling back and forth between his room, Alexander, and the woman whose chains he held.

"Not entirely private I suppose." Alexander barked a laugh yanking on the chains again.

The Witch cluched the pillow she had taken from Sargent Sky as if it was a pike upon which she planned to impale Captain Diamondclaw. Matthias was unsure if he could remember having ever seen a look of more passionate furry regardless of the owner's gender.

"Witch, come!" Alexander insisted as he headed for the smaller sleeping room.

"Captain, might I..." Began the other Talon who had not seen fit to introduce himself yet.

"No." Alexander answered at once with contemptous finality.

The very instant his Witch was across the threshold he slammed the door closed with such force it that was a wonder the well worn thing didn't fall from its hinges.

XXX XXX XXX

Alexander Diamondclaw took pride in the fact that he could slam a door so loudly that there was no chance at all of someone on the other side of it being able to hear the sound of him being struck upside the head by a pillow propelled with all possible force.

End Chapter.

AN: You might notice that this chapter reads a little unevenly. You might even be able to guess that there was a three month period of writer's block seperating one portion of it from the other. You would probably not need to try all that hard to guess exactly where the divide between those two portions of the chapter fell.

There's a very good reason for that though…

I've read online (pharasing of course) that the greatest skill of the writer is not the ability to write quickly, it is not the ability to cleverly turn a phrase, it is not the ability to concot griping or exciting plots, it is the ability to effectively serve as a conduit for your characters.

In order for the characters in a story to be truly compelling, they not the author has to decide what happens once the author sets the plot in motion.

For a good analogy consider a clockwork soldier, after you wind up its gears and set it down on the floor, you don't directly control where it ends up marching, even if you can choose the location of where to set it down or how thoroughly to wind it.

So… while I went into this book determined to write my most serious Monster Party story with a Jessica Jones (the Netflix show) level of dread pervading it (only provided by a everpresent totalitarian government rather a single man with mind control powers) my characters had other ideas.

When a writer fights his characters either nothing gets written worst, or nothing of any real value get written at best.

So, after puttering around, listening to podcast, audiobooks and otherwise wasting time for a few months straight, I decided to run up the white flag and let my characters tell the story they wanted to tell.

Said story being a great deal less Victor Hugo (he wrote Les Misérables if you didn't know) and a great deal more Gilbert and Sullivan... mixed with Donald Duck. That might sound absurd but if I'm going to write this in anything approaching a reasonable time frame then the characters are going to get what they want, so into the depths of Falkovnia we go making sure to heil, heil (cue blowing rasberry/kazoo) right in Vlad Darkov's face!

The somewhat disjointed result is why from now on every chapter of this story is going to have two titles, and since that is a convention I borrowed form Gilbert and Sulivian, the second title is always going to be from one of their songs.

So while I will attempt to continue conveying the horrors of Falkovnia in a suitably stark manner, my characters are determined to remind us that at the end of the day despots are nothing but small, stupid, petty, pathetic men who cling to power through raw naked violence because they could never get or keep it any other way. That is as true in real life as it is in Ravenloft. Such philosphical musings do may do little salve the wounds of the very real people that those tryants who are not bound in Ravenloft inflict upon real people, but I can only reiterate the words of Roger Rabbit…

 **Roger** : A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have.

So, Vlad Darkov having created a system based around respecting (well more accurately fearing/obeying) a uniform rather than the person wearing it, Alexander Diamondclaw is now going to exploite that particular fact for all the advantage (on his part) and hilarity (on our part) that can be gotten out of it.

Also to be clear, back when I wrote chapter one, I only inculded stealing the Talon's outfits as a way of the group showing their last disrepects to such horrible people/making as much money as possible from killing them, dressing up as/impersonating Talons was a convention/twist to story that my characters thought of not me.

So yeah, we're still in Ravenloft, we're still in Falkovnia, but Alexander Diamondclaw wants to cosplay a Warhammer 40K Radical Inquisitor with a retinue that includes a deamonhost and sanctioned psyker. What can I say, after seven other complete books by now you should probably realize that what Alexander Diamondclaw wants he ussually ends up getting.


End file.
